Getting tough & the silent military dissent against the war in Iraq

Ragusa · Sep 14, 2004

Remove all ads!
What always struck me is the predictability that when senior US officers retires, he starts to speak out against the conduct of the GWOT. They speak out silent but pointed, usually via intermediaries.

Just a few recent examples:
Gen. Ex-US Commander in Chief, Tommy Franks to Senator Bob Graham on the nonsense of attacking Iraq.

Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., contends that just months into combat in Afghanistan, Gen. Tommy Franks also told him that fighting terrorism in Somalia, Yemen and elsewhere should take priority over invading Iraq.

Graham said Franks told him he thought the United States knew less about the situation in Iraq than did some European governments, and the White House should ask them for advice.

The senator, who is retiring at year's end, said his conversation with the now-retired general came in February 2002, when Graham was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
(...)
Franks could not be reached for comment Sunday.
Click to expand...

Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, USMC on the Marine attack on Falluja which he had to conduct though he opposed it.

The outgoing U.S. Marine Corps general in charge of western Iraq said Sunday he opposed a Marine assault on militants in the volatile city of Fallujah in April and the subsequent decision to withdraw from the city and turn over control to a security force of former Iraqi soldiers.
(...)
He would not say where the order to attack originated, only that he received an order from his superior at the time, Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the overall commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. Some senior U.S. officials in Iraq have said the command originated in the White House.

"We follow our orders," Conway said. "We had our say, and we understood the rationale, and we saluted smartly, and we went about the attack."
Click to expand...

It seems to be the boneheaded view, frequently reiterated by Dick Cheney for example, that US must not show weakness and that display of weakness invites terror attack, that led the civil leadership to these decisions.
But that doesn't work in fighting an insurgency. The politicos decide on actions that won't work, and the military sees it - but salutes and goes to a mission they know is wrong, even counter-productive.

The results? Just take a look at this article: News Analysis: Get-tough tactics in Iraq

(...)
Even now, the get-tough approach is showing signs of backfiring.

When an insurgent drove a car bomb into a U.S. convoy Sunday, crippling a personnel carrier, a crowd of cheering Iraqis clambered on top.

Then an American helicopter, its pilots saying they were being shot at, opened fire, killing or wounding a number of Iraqi civilians. Inside the grim and chaotic wards of Baghdad's hospitals Sunday, the Americans seemed to have won more enemies than friends.
(...)
The get-tough approach appears to be straining the Iraqi government as well.
(...)
Click to expand...

I like this particular line by Gen. Zinni, ex commander of US Central Command:

First of all, I'm not going to speak for the chiefs. And, I'm not going to speak against them in any way. I will tell you this: when I was a commander at U.S. Central Command, and Hugh Shelton was the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hugh Shelton sent us the book Dereliction of Duty. He required all of us 17 four-star General Commanders to read the book. And we all reported to Washington, I believe it was (the) 28th of January, 1998, for a breakfast meeting.

At that meeting was a then young Army Maj. McMaster who wrote the book. Dereliction of Duty describes the dereliction on the part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Vietnam War, who had strong feelings about all the mistakes that were being made, but didn't speak their minds, and didn't speak up, with the exception of former Commandant of the Marine Corps, David Shoup. The message to us, after we heard this, from Hugh Shelton is, that will never happen here.

from a Q&A with Zinni on DCI:

http://www.cdi.org/program/document.cfm?DocumentID=2228&from_page=../index.cfm
Click to expand...

Under Rumsfeld and the neocon crew the doors are closed. Gen. Shinseki, in the above spirit, spoke out against the Iraq war planning, especially the insufficient number of troops to be sent to Iraq, and was sacked.
He, a general, was according to neocon Richard Perle not competent to make such a statement - but he and Wolfowitz - who have never seved a day in uniform, are. Civilians out-generaling the generals. Speak about a receipe for disaster.

Log in or Sign up

Getting tough & the silent military dissent against the war in Iraq

Ragusa Eternal Halfling Paladin Veteran